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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23874229">Heat Refraction</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras'>Shadaras</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brief Scenes of Explicit Sexual Content, Butch/Femme, Civilian Identity of Superheroine/Civilian Identity of Supervillainess, F/F, Governmental Oversight, Mention of Potential Police Violence, Secret Identity, Sexting, Sharing a Meal, Superhero/Supervillain Conflict, Texting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:48:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23874229</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about being a government-contracted superhero that nobody talks about is that your dating life sucks and that mostly you have one-night stands sourced from the local lesbian bar. Meeting Cassidy, Gabe starts thinking that she might make the effort to do more than that—if they can ever fucking get their schedules to line up.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Id Pro Quo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heat Refraction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/gifts">Ilthit</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Gabe’d seen Cassidy, she’d assumed that Cassidy was: 1) a model, and 2) not interested in anyone just then. The first was because she was made-up to perfection, with a cascade of deep brown hair over her olive skin and forest-green dress; and the second was because she was <i>gorgeous</i> and also still somehow sitting alone at Violet’s, which was quite a feat when Gabe could see at least three other women making eyes in Cassidy’s direction.</p><p>She’d been disabused of the second about fifteen seconds later, as Cassidy caught her eye across the bar and gestured her over with close-cropped nails painted in a gradient from neon pink thumbs to blood-red pinkies. Gabe had come, of course; there hadn’t been much question about that. When Cassidy had smiled and asked her name, Gabe had known she was done-for.</p><p>(Later that night, she’d come in a more figurative sense, too, quick and brutal with Cassidy’s mouth pressed against her clit. Cassidy hadn’t wanted her to return the favor, but had stayed wrapped close until they’d both felt alert enough to exchange numbers properly.)</p><p>The next month involved a lot of frustration as they texted back and forth, trying to figure out work schedules. Gabe worked as a web coder contracted to the city hall, which sucked for a myriad of reasons even if it was the only kind of job she could keep with her duties to the self-same government as Phoenix. In this case specifically, it was fucked because she’d be contracted for a couple days at a time, but never knew which days more than a week in advance. But she did learn that her first assumption about Cassidy had been right: Cassidy did in fact work in something about fashion or film, because her shoots kept overlapping with Gabe’s days off.</p><p>(They texted other things too. Endearments. Photos of lips and breasts. Stupid jokes about needing to take care of nails. Photos of the terrarium Cassidy kept, full of living plants and also no few lizards. Gabe responded to that with photos of the spider plant she was mostly managing to keep alive, and photos of sidewalk dandelions, and Cassidy made fun of her and it was a lot nicer than she’d thought and maybe she was having feelings that weren’t just hook-up feelings.)</p><p>And then, the first time that they’d finally found a time they could meet back up, Gabe was on her way over when her phone went off, playing an angry drum riff that cut straight through her excitement. She answered it before it started to loop, because she’d set the riff special for her phone to play when the fucking mayor or chief of police or whoever else from the government wanted Phoenix. “What,” she said, voice as flat as it could be and still be polite.</p><p>“Mirage is fucking with the downtown shopping centers,” Chief Donovan said, and Gabe just barely bit back her groan. “How fast can you get there?”</p><p>Gabe looked up at the sky. She’d been waiting at the bus stop for at least five minutes. The bus was going to come any minute now; traffic just had to get out of its way. “Like, twenty minutes tops.”</p><p>“Be there in fifteen.”</p><p>The line cut off, and Gabe cursed, Spanish flowing out of her mouth as she stomped—literally, she was wearing her nicest boots, because Cassidy had asked her to dress up and stompy boots and a tucked shirt and a nice jacket were what suited today's weather—back down the street and up the stairs to her apartment, where she shed her nice normal clothing and pulled out Phoenix’s specially-made fire-proof suit, black and red and gold with a beaked-and-crested cowl.</p><p>Somewhere in the middle she texted Cassidy, saying, <i>Hey girl, fucking hate to do this but work called with an emergency. Rain check?</i>  </p><p>By the time she’d gotten her Phoenix costume on (and it felt like a costume still, seven years past when she’d first been handed it; the tech had improved in that time, but the design had barely changed), Cassidy had responded, <i>ok, babe &lt;3 see you soon!</i>  </p><p>“I don’t deserve that,” Gabe muttered, sending just a <i>&lt;3</i> back before tucking her phone into its special pouch where it was usually protected from any of the bullshit she got up to. Then she climbed the fire escape, breathed in, and launched herself into the air with a roar of fire as the air burnt around her.</p><p>When she’d turned eighteen and been given the costume and name, she’d looked at it and asked why there wasn’t a cape. All the comics said that heroes had capes, especially ones who flew. She was going to be Phoenix, so why not have a cape shaped like feathers? The media man had laughed at her like she was a child (and she wasn’t; she might be small and she carried padding over her muscles but she could punch harder than most men and almost wanted to show him that, but Mamá said that would cause more trouble than anything else), and said that they didn’t want it to get caught or tangled, especially not while she was still learning and might ruin her name before she even had one.</p><p>By now, Gabe knew he’d been right, but he still could’ve been nicer about it.</p><p>The city sped beneath her, all of spring’s chill banished by the flames boiling around her. Up here in the sky, she almost felt free. If she just didn’t have any obligations, maybe—</p><p>Gabe drew a deep breath (scientists had asked her how she did that, and they’d never been satisfied with her answers; not when she was a child, nor a teen, nor now) and firmly dragged her mind back to the mission at hand: Get Mirage out of the district, or at least to stop disrupting normal activities.</p><p>The thing was, Mirage was one of the antagonists she minded least. Mirage meant no property damage. Mirage meant minimal harm to human life. Mirage just liked making life difficult, but the way she went about doing it meant that the Normal Human Authorities were kind of fucked. Case in point, Gabe thought as she burned her way down towards the vanished section of the city below her. It wasn’t even a particularly special part of the city; it just happened to be the mall district where half the city government shopped.</p><p>Gabe slowed herself as she reached the vanished place, because it wasn’t really vanished. Light just worked differently, when Mirage wanted it to. Mostly, that meant making things hard or impossible to see, or blinding the fuck out of any police who got anywhere near her. Also disabling every single traffic and security camera in the area. Honestly, if Gabe hadn’t been contractually obligated to contest her? This was the sort of thing that her Mamá would be cackling at on the news, and Papá would be hiding his own smile behind a magazine. But this got her money and kept her family safe and meant her cousins could go to college, so Gabe kept going.</p><p>Then everything popped back into sight, and—</p><p>Mirage stood in the middle of the fountains, light reflecting and refracting in the water so that they turned into a giant rotating sign saying <i>EAT THE RICH</i> in rainbow colors. Gabe had to land on the top of the nearest building to laugh, because she couldn’t focus enough to keep the flames going. Mirage was normally ostentatious, but this was a new high for her—and a new low for what the cops couldn’t handle on their own.</p><p>Gabe jumped off the building and caught herself just above the roads, letting the fires die down to a mere show of sparks around her as she walked towards Mirage. Honestly, she suspected that the fountains had been chosen just as much to contest her as to enable her to make such a nice display. There wasn’t much cover there if the cops <i>did</i> start shooting, but since most of the civilians in the area were just going about their business—if they’d noticed the “you can’t see in” effect, they didn’t care—the cops didn’t have a good excuse to start shooting. Or, hopefully more importantly, a safe line-of-sight.</p><p>“This is new,” Gabe called as she approached Mirage. The flames modulated her voice, turning it deeper and rougher than it normally was. “When I’d heard you were fucking with the shopping center, I’d thought it would be a little more disruptive.”</p><p>Mirage’s laughter was clear and bright, and a pulse of bright light flared out around her. Gabe flinched, but this wasn’t solid, the way she could get it if she really wanted to. (That was the other reason the cops hated trying to shoot at her; she’d surround herself with white-hot light and go invisible and they couldn’t catch her.) She turned to face Gabe, looking just as fuzzy and ethereal as always. There was a person inside, but as Mirage, the best Gabe could ever tell the cops was “Taller than me, not like that’s hard, and definitely a woman.”</p><p>“What are you supposed to do to me?” Mirage asked, and she sounded genuinely curious.</p><p>Gabe shrugged, stopping just outside the fountains’ radius. Just because she could keep her fire going through rain and fountain-spray if she had to didn’t mean she wanted to. “Make you stop interfering with capitalism.” She let fire play idly on her fingers and then flicked it into the water, holding it just hot enough to turn to steam in front of Mirage’s chest.</p><p>“Was that supposed to be a threat?” Mirage’s form turned laughing gold. “You can do better than <i>that</i>, surely.”</p><p>“If you want a fight, we can have one.” Gabe shrugged and started brightening the plumes from her shoulders. She could hear people scurrying away from the plaza, frightened and awestruck in equal measure. They were celebrities, and they could kill people, and the populace thrilled at a fight because of that. “Or you can leave. I’m sure you let them take all the photos you need to prove your point.”</p><p>“And let the people leave without a show?” Mirage shook her head. “We can’t have that, can we?”</p><p>Then the area plunged into darkness, and Gabe automatically rolled away, not even trying to burn her fire any brighter. The light would come back when Mirage wanted it to, and no sooner. This was the frustrating part of the fight, but it looked good on TV, and Mirage wanted the show more than she wanted something dangerous, so Gabe played her game as best she could. So she waited, hands in the defensive boxer’s stance she’d learned too young, and waited.</p><p>The first blow came out of nowhere, but after the second Gabe got the idea of it and lashed back out. She hit something, and the light came back, even if Mirage didn’t, and then the fight was truly on. Gabe pulsed fire in a slow circle around her feet, waiting to dart in whatever direction she heard cursing from. That was how the game went: Mirage played hide-and-seek, and Phoenix did her damndest to keep up and maybe get some blows of her own in.</p><p>An exhausting hour later, Mirage had vanished back to wherever she came from, Gabe was sore and burnt-out—literally more than figuratively—and just wanted to go back home and take a long bath. (And maybe complain to Cassidy about work and how nobody ever cared about what was useful for her to do so long as they got what they wanted.) She zoned out through most of the debrief, and by the time she got home (dressed as Gabe Vidal again, because of course they had spare clothing for her at police HQ) it was almost dark, so all she had the energy for was throwing a microwave burrito in to reheat and collapsing on the couch.</p><p>Gabe scrolled through her phone, where nothing interesting lived and Cassidy had sent a single photo of one of her flowers starting to bloom, wishing—</p><p><i>I wanted to feel your skin again,</i> she wrote, too tired to care what Cassidy would think. <i>I wanted to learn what you taste like (not your cunt unless you wanted that, because I’d LOVE that but you don't always seem to wanna and thats okay) and I wanted to feel your mouth on my nipples and your fingers in me because damn youve got good hands and I gotta know what they feel like</i>  </p><p>She sent it when the microwave beeped, and by the time she’d managed a few bites of overheated beans and cheese, her phone vibrated: <i>awwwww babe &lt;33333</i>  <br/>
<i>i wnted yr muscles</i>  <br/>
<i>&amp; yr mouth :hearteyes:</i>  <br/>
<i>&amp; to make you come a dozen times</i>  <br/>
<i>(bet you could)</i>  </p><p>Gabe almost choked as she read that, fingers oily and heart racing. <i>Girl, you know how to make me wet</i> she said, before she could regret it. <i>I’m wiped or else I’d come over there RIGHT NOW and make you prove it</i>  </p><p><i>tmrw?</i>  <br/>
<i>im free</i>  </p><p><i>Yeah</i>, Gabe typed, half-eaten burrito forgotten in her lap. <i>I can do that. What time?</i>  </p><p><i>mm brunch?</i>  <br/>
<i>10:30</i>  <br/>
<i>my place</i>  </p><p>Gabe swallowed, mouth dry and mind buzzing. <i>I’ll be there &lt;3&lt;3&lt;3</i>, she said, and then she turned her phone on silent and flipped it over so that she could make any attempt at finishing her sad excuse for a dinner in peace.</p><p>On the way to the shower, though, she checked it and was rewarded with a low-light photo of Cassidy’s torso, pale breasts hugged by a sheer lacy bra that did nothing to disguise her hardened nipples or the way her hand was fading into the shadows between her legs. <i>thnkng of u &lt;333</i>, it was captioned, and Gabe leaned against the wall and groaned, heat rising in her cunt.</p><p>So instead of showering and falling asleep quickly, Gabe let herself luxuriate in the bath, hands wandering across her body but not quite— She didn’t want to bring herself off, not with the promise of another woman’s hands and mouth on her tomorrow. She sent a photo back—skin flushed, mouth slightly open, short hair slicked back, the curve of her breasts just barely visible—with the note, <i>waiting for you :3</i> attached.</p><p>She fell asleep before seeing any response.</p><p>In the morning, Gabe forced herself to get through brushing her teeth and making toast before she looked at her phone. Cassidy had sent a bunch of hearts, there was a notification saying that her private Phoenix email had something—probably the finalised report from the fight yesterday, hopefully her payment for services rendered—and a variety of other inevitable notes from apps that she swiped off the screen without doing more than glancing at.</p><p>Her phone <i>also</i> buzzed with a reminder that if she was taking the bus across the city, she had like half an hour to get ready for the 9:30am bus. Whatever fraction of her brain had been sensible enough last night to set that reminder, Gabe was grateful for it now. She shoved the last few bites of toast in her mouth and ran to take a quick shower, rinsing the night’s sweat off her skin. Then, clean and naked, she surveyed her closet to see if today she had any better ideas for what to wear than she’d had yesterday.</p><p>After ten minutes, she cut herself off and just put on the same clothes, taking care to smooth them down across her body. She might overheat outside—today was properly warm, unlike yesterday—but the aesthetic was worth it. The patch-covered leather jacket was a soothing weight on her back as she shoved phone and keys and wallet into her pockets and ran down the stairs to catch the bus. It was late, as usual, but only once she was on it did Gabe relax, slouch into the corner of the open row she was in, and text Cassidy <i>omw, busses take forever</i>  </p><p>Five minutes later, just as Gabe was sinking into her music and zoning out, her phone buzzed with notifications: <i>u eat yet?</i>  <br/>
<i>id only sorta been jking about brunch :3</i>  <br/>
<i>cld eat u but if u wnt food ill save sm scones</i>  <br/>
<i>theyre pumpkin</i>  </p><p>A photo of an oven with orangy scones baking inside followed, and Gabe stared at it in confusion for a good minute at least before muttering, “How the fuck are you real,” and typing out <i>You’re serious? Hell yeah I want scones!</i>  <br/>
<i>(I also want to taste you but hot damn those scones)</i>  </p><p>Cassidy sent back a string of laughing and heart emoji, and Gabe rolled her eyes, but sent back some hearts herself. More food than a couple slices of toast would be good, honestly; the plan had always been to have sex more leisurely than they could after sneaking away from a bar, and that took a lot of energy at the best of times. She leaned back and stared out the window, absently keeping track of the bus’s route but mostly drifting in music, resting as best she could on the way.</p><p>The bus let her off at 10:17, and the stop was five minutes away from Cassidy’s place according to googled directions. Gabe let Cassidy know, and started walking, looking at all the apartment buildings. It was an older district, more like where Gabe had grown up than the shiny glass-and-steel high-rise the government had stuck her in near the center of town. These buildings only rose to five stories at their tallest, and were an eclectic mix of brickwork and painted stucco. Trees threaded their way through the concrete and peeked out between buildings, and many of the windows held flower boxes, when they weren’t actually balconies in their own right.</p><p>Gabe slowed as she reached Cassidy’s building. The sprawling tangle of plants overflowing from Cassidy’s open windows was familiar, even though this angle wasn’t. And there was music playing, pop stars in their sugar-bright voices faint from this distance, but almost certainly coming from the same place. Gabe texted <i>hey girl, I’m at your door</i> and ten seconds later the music shut off. She grinned and leaned artfully against the tree planted in front of the building’s face.</p><p>Cassidy opened the door dressed in a tight sky-blue crop-top and a full skirt that swirled around her legs in sunset shades, and Gabe felt herself flush as she took in the softness of Cassidy’s exposed belly and the brightness of her smile. “Hey, babe,” Cassidy said, clearly aware of the effect she was having. “Come up and get out of the heat, okay?”</p><p>Gabe nodded and pushed off the tree. “How can I refuse an invitation from such a gorgeous lady?”</p><p>Cassidy’s laugh sparkled like the sun, and she led Gabe into the blessedly-cool inside of the apartment building. “I don’t think you ever have, charmer.”</p><p>They circled up two flights of stairs before Cassidy led Gabe into a short hall and from there into her apartment. Gabe looked around, curious; it smelled like plants and baked goods and she thought she’d seen almost all of it in the photos Cassidy had sent, but the sheer vibrancy of color and life was still something else. Every surface that could be decorated was, it felt like, strung with hangings and fairy lights and poster art. She turned to Cassidy as the door closed, pulse still racing. “Beautiful place, beautiful woman, but I was promised scones?”</p><p>“Gotta sate your stomach first?” Cassidy teased, brushing her fingers across Gabe’s belly. Gabe shivered at the glancing touch even though the thin layers of her button-down. “Take your shoes off first; I’m not letting you track dirt all through my apartment.”</p><p>“Got enough dirt from the plants?” Gabe asked, but she crouched down to undo the easy-release zippers on her boots. She stepped out of them and lined them up next to the array of colorful heels Cassidy owned but hadn’t put on while fetching her from downstairs. “I see how it is, they can do whatever they want but I haven’t earned that yet.”</p><p>Cassidy’s hand caught hers and brought it up to her lips. “No,” Cassidy said, breath running across the back of Gabe’s knuckles. “Maybe after today, you will have.”</p><p>Gabe’s breath caught, especially as Cassidy kissed the back of her hand, lips lingering just long enough for her tongue to gently press against the bones.</p><p>“But I did promise you scones first.” Cassidy squeezed Gabe’s hand and led her into the kitchen, cheerful and apparently oblivious to how food was definitely not the foremost thing on Gabe’s mind anymore. She had to be doing that intentionally, Gabe thought, dazed. She took off her jacket at Cassidy’s request, letting it hang over the back of the kitchen chair as she sat next to Cassidy. The scones were marvelous, soft and still just barely warm, and Gabe ate three before turning to Cassidy, who’d slowly been picking through one, since she’d eaten earlier.</p><p>“So,” Gabe said, leaning on the table a little. “You can bake and garden and I am delighted by this, but my stomach wasn’t the hunger you’d promised to sate.”</p><p>Cassidy’s eyes fixed on hers. “Isn’t it?”</p><p>“Girl, don’t do this to me,” Gabe groaned, but she could feel the heat rising in her body. “You’ve been teasing me for <i>weeks</i> about what you’d do if you got your hands on me.”</p><p>“What have I promised that lingers in your mind?” Cassidy’s hands touched, soft and graceful, tracing the lines of cheek and jawbone, down to the top button of Gabe’s shirt, where they paused as Cassidy looked, eyebrows raised in question.</p><p>“So many things.” Gabe reached out to place her hand on Cassidy’s bare midriff. “I don’t know where to start.”</p><p>“In my bedroom, I think.” Cassidy’s fingers twisted to tug on Gabe’s shirt, inviting her to follow. “Unless you have objections?”</p><p>Gabe shook her head, and followed, words beginning to spill from her mouth. Cassidy laughed, and as they entered her sky-themed room, nothing else seemed to matter nearly so much. Inside, Cassidy told Gabe to strip and she did, already wet from the hunger in Cassidy’s eyes. But Cassidy let her desire build, instead asking Gabe to remove just Cassidy’s underwear. Gabe knelt, and drew the thin fabric out of the way, and learned exactly how good Cassidy tasted (and how good her hands felt, clutching Gabe’s hair) as the sunset skirt veiled her.</p><p>Only then did Cassidy draw Gabe up and kiss her, spin to back her gently against the bed, and fuck her. Gabe let her, trying to keep her eyes open as much as she could, watching the sparkle in Cassidy’s eyes turn to almost a glow as she sucked on Gabe’s nipples and traced the soft lines of Gabe’s muscles. It was hard to focus through the pleasure, but Gabe finally managed to remove the rest of Cassidy’s clothing so that she could feel every smooth curve and relish the feeling of warm skin bright against her own.</p><p>Later, when they were both satisfied and curled under Cassidy’s dusk-blue bedspread, Gabe murmured, “Did you know you look like you’re glowing when you come?”</p><p>Cassidy kissed her eyelids. “Sweet of you to say, babe. I’m sure it’s just a trick of the light. And maybe some rosy glasses on your eyes.”</p><p>Gabe hummed and nuzzled closer to Cassidy. She didn’t want to leave the afterglow, and didn’t want to think about work, and so she just said, “Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re a goddess. They always glow, in the stories.”</p><p>“Which one?”</p><p>“Persephone, ‘cause of all your plants.” Gabe yawned. “Are you gonna be offended if I end up napping?”</p><p>“Nah.” Cassidy smoothed her hand over the buzzed side of Gabe’s hair. “That’s really sweet.”</p><p>“Gotta do this again.”</p><p>Gabe felt Cassidy smile against her forehead as she said, “We certainly will.”</p><p>If Cassidy said anything else, Gabe didn’t hear; she fell asleep to the feeling of Cassidy’s hands in her hair and the slow, even beat of her heart.</p>
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